m the Lippu Pass 454
The Author, February and October 455
Chanden Sing's Legs, Showing Marks of Lashes and Wounds Healed 456
Mr. J. Larkin 457
Chanden Sing and Mansing enjoying their first Meal according
to the Rules of their Castes 458
A Tibetan Temporary Shed 459
A Shaky Passage on the Nerpani Road 460
View of Askote, Showing Rajiwar's Palace 461
Snapshot of Shoka Villagers being Routed 461
Dr. Wilson, Myself, Mr. Larkin, the Political Peshkar,
and Jagat Sing ready to ascend the Lippu Pass 462
Tinker in Nepal 463
On the Lippu Pass 464
Mr. Larkin's Party and Mine Halting near the Lippu Pass 465
Mr. Larkin looking out for the Jong Pen from the Lippu Pass 466
Bathing at 16,300 Feet 467
Dharchula. Deserted Habitations of Shokas 467
"I told you," exclaimed the old savage, "that whoever visits
the home of the Raots will have misfortune" 468
A Picturesque Bit of Almora 469
Raots Listening to the Account of My Misfortunes 470
Map of South-Western Tibet, showing Author's Route and Return, Journey 470

CHAPTER I

FROM LONDON TO NAINI TAL

[Illustration: A CHINESE PASSPORT]

ON leaving London, I intended to proceed _via_ Germany to Russia,
traverse Russian Turkestan, Bokhara and Chinese Turkestan, and from there
enter Tibet. The Russian Government had readily granted me a special
permission to take free of duty through their territory my firearms,
ammunition, provisions, photographic cameras, surveying and other
scientific instruments, and moreover informed me, through H.E. Sir
Nicholas O'Conor, then our Ambassador in St. Petersburg, that I should be
privileged to travel on the military railway through Turkestan, as far as
the terminus at Samarakand. I feel under a great obligation to the
Russian Embassy in London for the extreme courtesy shown me, and I desire
to acknowledge this at the outset, especially because that route might
very likely have saved me much of the suffering and disappointment I was
subjected to through going by way of India.

I was provided with introductions and credentials from the Marquis of
Salisbury, the British Museum of Natural History, etc., I was carrying
scientific instruments for the Royal Geographical Society, and I had a
British and two Chinese passports.

Having forwarded all my explosives by an ammunition vessel to Russia (the
German railways absolutely refusing to carry cartridges), I heard to my
dismay, only a few days previous to le